Indoor scanning works because rooms have walls to measure. A back yard does not. For outdoor work Scanstead takes a different approach: you trace the outline on the ground and get area and perimeter from the trace.
What a trace gives you
Walk the boundary of the area — the deck footprint, the patio, the driveway, the whole lot — and the result is:
- Area, which prices concrete, pavers, decking, or sod
- Perimeter, which prices edge restraint, railing, footing, or forming
- The outline itself, as a record of what you priced
For a deck, area and perimeter are most of the bid: decking by the square foot, railing and rim by the linear foot, and footings by count along the perimeter.
Where it beats a wheel
A measuring wheel handles a rectangle. Hardscape is rarely a rectangle — a patio with a curved edge, a driveway that widens at the apron, a lot that is a five-sided polygon. Tracing follows the actual shape instead of decomposing it into rectangles you then add up by hand.
Pair it with the exterior scan
For a deck attached to the house, trace the footprint for area and capture the adjacent exterior wall as a LiDAR mesh. Between the two you have the deck's dimensions and the ledger wall it attaches to, plus photos of the existing condition.
The honest limits
A trace is a plan-view outline. It does not carry grade, slope, or elevation change, and those matter a great deal for drainage, stair counts, and how much fill a patio needs. Note the grade with a level and a voice memo.
And it is not a survey. It measures an area for a bid, not a boundary for a filing. If the question is where the property line is, that is a surveyor.
Why it is fast
One walk around the perimeter, and the two numbers the bid needs are done.
The yard does not have walls. It still has edges.